"There are things that you cannot imagine,
but there is nothing that may not happen!"
-- CIA Axiom

Blind spots are not things you cannot see.
(Because you can imagine them, visualize them,
even if you can't see them.)
Blind spots are things that you don't know
you cannot see.
Superstitions are not beliefs that you know
are false. Superstitions are beliefs that you
know are true, that are false.
Training (not just education) is required
to defeat blind spots and superstitions.
Of course, if the instructor is reinforcing
your superstitions, the training is bad. The
solution is to take classes from many different
instructors (even if they are at the same school).
If you can count the names of your instructors
on one hand, your training is not diverse enough.
That's why attending the Tactical Conference
http://rangemaster.com/2018-tactical-conference/
is so valuable. In one weekend, you will have
the opportunity to learn from many instructors
and to talk to them, between classes, at dinner,
at lunch, etc.

Skill Set: Repetitionhttp://www.thetacticalwire.com/features/231903
I took the Front Sight 4-day Defensive Handgun class
four times before I earned the graduate certificate. And
then I have taken the class several more time since.
Because I enjoy taking others to the class. And I learn
something new every time. Because there is always a
different instructor, and I am using different equipment,
and the students are different, so the discussions are
different.

Tom Givens' advice for preparing for a training class:
Do not be late. [At Front Sight, they would tell us,
if you can't be on time, be early. -- Jon Low]
You are expected to wear a gun throughout the course.
[Tom runs a hot range, as do all the best gun schools.
(Does that mean that the military gun schools are not the best?
Yes, that's exactly what that means. Unrealistic behavior
in practice leads to unrealistic behavior in combat.)
Guns loaded and holstered. Round in the chamber, full
magazine in the magazine well. -- Jon Low]
Bring a reliable pistol, of at least 9X19mm or .38 Special caliber,
and at least three magazines/speedloaders for it (more magazines,
more better!). You will need a good, concealment type belt holster
and magazine pouches.
You don’t need to wear more than 2 spare magazines on your
person, but having more spares is always good. When you show up
for class, have your holster and magazine pouches on your belt,
with the gun and magazines in them. Please don’t show up not
wearing your gear. If you are a police officer, you may use your
duty rig, if you like.
I suggest bringing a second gun just like your primary,
in case something breaks. This way you can still use the same
magazines, holster and ammo. Not mandatory, just a suggestion
based on experience.
[But this should be mandatory. Otherwise, the instructors will
have to loan you equipment when your equipment fails. -- Jon Low]
If you wear a BUG (back up gun), feel free to wear it in class.
Please bring 1,000 rounds of quality, factory or
re-manufactured, jacketed or plated ammunition. This will be
used for your record qualification shooting.
BE SURE THIS AMMO FEEDS RELIABLY IN YOUR GUN
AND THAT IT HITS TO THE SIGHTS.
You might as well have every edge you can for your make it or
break it qualification. I suggest factory ball ammo, such as
Federal American Eagle, Winchester White Box,Independence, or
MagTech ball. All ammo must be jacketed or plated.
Ammunition you reloaded is allowed, as long as it is jacketed.
[I, Front Sight, and many other gun schools forbid reloads of any kind.
Just because the reloader thinks that he is competent, does not
mean that he is competent. Incompetent reloaders destroy guns
and injure shooters and spectators. -- Jon Low]
A cooler with drinks and snacks would help you get through
the day with energy and comfort.

Strong Hand & Support Hand Only - Reloadshttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6fRp5UHQn0Y&feature=youtu.be
These techniques work. I recommend Bob Allen.
I don't teach these because I'm not willing to
bet that the slide will lock back on an empty magazine.
I don't think the shooter should be using fine motor
operations in a high stress situation. Better to
stick to gross motor operations.
Some of my students do not have the flexibility to
reach the magazine well when the pistol is holstered.
Don't stick your pistol into your Blackhawk
SERPA holster backwards. It can get stuck.
It's good to take classes from different
instructors. You can never have too many software
tools in your software toolbox (your brain).

Cross-Dominant Eye Shootinghttps://americanhandgunner.com/exclusive-cross-dominant-eye-shooting/
Eye dominance is not correlated to vision acuity.
You might see better with your non-dominant eye.
Eye dominance is only slightly correlated with
handedness. You might be right handed, but left eye
dominant.
I haven't been able to find any literature in
the peer reviewed journals indicating a correlation
between eye dominance and right or left brain
hemisphere dominance (concerned with high order
intellectual or cognitive things). [I mention this
because a student asked me.] Eye dominance is
an optical thing, controlled in the back of the brain.
The high order intellectual cognitive stuff is
controlled in the frontal lobes of the brain. (But,
I'm not an expert in the field. I just spent too
much time in the psych department when an undergrad.)

Appeals court invalidates District of Columbia’s
"good reason" constraint on public carry of firearmshttp://legalinsurrection.com/2017/07/appeals-court-invalidates-d-c-s-good-reason-constraint-on-public-carry-of-firearms/
The citizens asked the appeals court (Federal Circuit Court)
to grant an injunction because the law would probably be
overturned by the trial court (Federal District Court) because
the law requiring "good reason" to keep and bear arms is
unconstitutional. But, the appeals court did not grant an
injunction. Rather, they (three Federal Circuit Court Judges)
ruled that the law was unconstitutional and did not allow the
District Court to hear the case. Wow! This rarely happens.
Big win for gun rights!

Yet more excuses as to why I missedhttps://www.ssusa.org/articles/2017/7/3/the-forces-at-work-when-a-bullet-leaves-a-gun/
Having worked as an artillery forward observer
and cannoneer (though never as a fire control person,
though I did grind through the calculations in
artillery school at Schofield Barracks in Hawaii)
I can attest to the reality of these things. And I can
assure you that at pistol distances, they are of absolutely
no concern to us. So, the picture of the person shooting
a pistol at the top of the article is misleading to put it
politely. Even for long range rifle shooters, these are
third and fourth order effects.

If you would like the lesson plans for my
NRA Defensive Pistol course, send me an email,
and I'll send you the latest version.

"I am sorry this letter is so long. If I had had more
time, I would have written a shorter letter."
-- Napoleon Bonaparte
Napoleon I, Emperor of the French
(not Emperor of France, for he was not a monarch
who owned all of the land of France)

"To each there comes in their lifetime a special moment when they are figuratively tapped on the shoulder and offered the chance to do a very special thing, unique to them and fitted to their talents. What a tragedy if that moment finds them unprepared or unqualified for that which could have been their finest hour."-- Winston Churchill

My experience has been that the most interesting missions, the most significant missions, are not those that you are assigned in the course of your normal duties, nor are they the ones you volunteer for. Those special missions are those you are tapped for, selected because of your reputation and skill set. They are the missions that you never would have thought existed. That's why it is so important to be of good character.

Being able to focus on the front sight is essential. If you can't, fix the problem. Yes, as a matter of fact this is a matter of life or death. (Yes, you need to be able to shoot without your glasses or with the wrong glasses, as Mr. Farnam states in his article, "Less Than Optimal" above. But, as a matter of training, you must be able to achieve a high resolution image of your front sight.) Visual focus is inextricably connected to mental focus. If you focus on the front sight, you know where the gun is pointed and can aim. If you don't or can't focus on the front sight, you will focus on the target, in which case the sight will wander all over the place; and you'll never notice it. Failure to focus on the front sight ensures you will miss. Yes, I know this is hard to achieve. And I know that you will need to practice it all the time, because without recent practice, you won't do it automatically.

I had a student who was having malfunctions (failure to fire), because he was not compressing the grip safety. His grip strength was sufficient to compress the safety. Everyone is different. When he had a correct grip with the barrel in a straight line with the bones of his forearm and his thumb high (in this case on top of the thumb safety), the base of his thumb did not naturally compress the safety. The solutions we came to: 1. When using two hands, push with the firing side arm and pull with the support side arm. (The standard Weaver system. It's really hard to get this dynamic tension using an Isosceles system.)2. With one hand, (after pushing the safety off) bring the thumb down to hold the pistol as a hammer.

One of my students attended a course given by John Connor (the firearms instructor, not the hero of the Terminator movies). Mr. Connor had said that when scanning, you should look deep into the background. Most people only look about 50 feet from their location. So, they don't notice important things further out.

On-Body CCW For Women: Real Talkhttps://www.nrafamily.org/articles/2017/6/20/on-body-ccw-for-women-real-talk/ The author recommends professional instruction before using the "Flash Bang" bra holster. (Because there are documented cases of women shooting themselves while holstering. At least one that I know of resulting in death.) I recommend not using this type of holster. As I do not wear a bra, I am not writing from firsthand experience. But, as with shoulder holsters or cross draw holsters, it is impractical to bring the muzzle to bear on the target without sweeping the 90 degree quadrant to the left of the target (for a right handed shooter). So, it violates our safety rule.

***** Instructors *****

Sometimes your assistant instructors or students will feel uncomfortable reading the lectures, because of mature, sexual, or violent content. So, you should read the lecture. We once had an assistant instructor who would not use the foul language in the lecture because a 12 year old girl was in the class. Once, a student self censored herself because the other students were strangers to her, and she could not bring herself to talk about impotence or sexual dysfunction that resulted from the trauma of shooting an assailant in a self defense situation. Be aware, and do not put your assistants or students in awkward situations.

Make sure to have handouts covering all of the material that you present in class (and maybe material you don't have time to present in class). Because some students learn by reading. Some students have bad memories. Some students have poor hearing. And all kinds of other reasons. If you are afraid of your precious copyrighted material being copied and distributed without your permission, your attitude is wrong. As Col. Jeff Cooper said, you may freely distribute my works. (as paraphrased in his writings in the Scones). This should be your attitude. Musical performers don't make money off the selling of their recordings. The recordings only serve to cause people to want to attend concerts (live performances in person or online). That's where the performers make their money. That's the music industry business model. This should be your business model. The person who learned something from reading your works may have saved their life or the lives of loved ones. You win! You may not have made any money, but you won. And who knows, the person may attribute their success to you. What a reputation builder.

"A free people ought not only be armed and disciplined, but they should have sufficient arms and ammunition to maintain a status of independence from any who might attempt to abuse them, which would include their own government." -- George Washington

***** For Beginners *****

"Fiction is much harder to write than non-fiction because fiction has to make sense."-- Mark Twain

Self-defense instruction is the hardest to write because it has to be true philosophically, correct tactically, correct legally, and make sense to the student. And most difficult of all, the students must understand why the instructor is telling them to do it that way, and must be able to execute the instructions competently under debilitating stress. So, if your instructor is teaching you some high-speed low-drag super-duper fancy technique that they used in his special operations unit, be careful. Under stress simple works, complicated fails. My fencing coaches told me, there are no secrets. Everything has been known for millennia. The coach is there to teach you how to do it correctly, not to teach you something he recently discovered. Good cryptology is open source. Because when a thousand eyes look at an algorithm or protocol, the flaw is obvious to one of them. In secret or proprietary contexts, very few eyes see the source code, so the probability of someone seeing the problem is very low. And on the off chance that one of the few sees the problem, he is probably related to the creator and doesn't want to criticize his advisor or his advisor's advisor. Yes, I've been there. I know what I'm talking about.